Gardeners find live grenade

9:00am Friday 6th April 2007

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A GROUP of gardeners made a shock discovery in Great Missenden when they dug up a live hand grenade - which was only stopped from detonating by a lump of dirt.

Alan Ball found the Second World War relic while working at the house in Peterly on Tuesday. The 43-year-old, who owns Alan Ball Landscaping and Garden Management in Eaton Avenue, Sands, was handed the explosive by one of his workers, and to his horror discovered the pin was missing. The only thing keeping the release handle down and preventing it from exploding was a chunk of clay and chalk.

“The only thing that was holding the release part of the grenade was clay and chalk."

Alan Ball

He told his staff to move quickly to safety and took the grenade as far from the house as possible before calling the police. Once they arrived the house was cordoned off and bomb disposal experts were called in.

Mr Ball, a father-of-two, said: "One of my team said, 'I think we've got a live one here''. They didn't know what it was, they said it looked like a grenade, it just got passed to me. I took it away from the house and called the police. It was very heavy and looked quite old.

"The only thing that was holding the release part of the grenade was clay and chalk.

"The pin was actually out. It could have gone at any time, we found out subsequently. The main worry was to make sure everybody around was as far away as possible from it."

He added: "It's a bit surreal really, you just think it's a lump of metal. When I found out it was live it's like, oh my God that could have gone at any time. In hindsight I shouldn't have even touched it.

"Peoples' security was more important than anything else. You don't think you're going to trip over one of those and when it is there it's just get everyone out the way."

Once the police had been called Mr Ball and his team were evacuated from the area and neighbours were alerted.

After officers checked over the area and made sure it was safe, Mr Ball and his team were allowed back on site to continue their work.

Chesham beat officer PC Pete Wheeler who attended the scene said: "The soil was seen to have eroded the pin and the chalk was holding in place the detonator clip."

The bomb disposal team from Northolt, London identified the device as a Second World War grenade and took it off site to carry out a safe explosion in an open field a couple of miles away.